General Meeting 15th January 2013

Islington
NUT reaffirms its commitment to resist Michael Gove’s ‘war’ on teachers’ pay,
conditions and pensions and the Coalition governments drive to dismantle and
privatise state education by means of its accelerated academies and free
schools programme and now Ebacc.

We
recognise that Gove’s plan to break up teachers national pay arrangements and
leave it to individual headteachers to determine teachers’ pay – at the same
time as freezing pay rises below inflation - threatens to create a charter for
bullying heads, to seriously weaken the ability of teacher trade unions to
defend their members, to cut back teachers living standards, jeopardise career
progression, especially of young teachers, and to discriminate women who take
career breaks to have children and lose the right to ‘portable’ pay points.

We
welcome the success of joint NUT/NASUWT Action Short of Strike Action in protecting
and improving teachers working conditions and professional autonomy in many
schools, but recognise that ASOSA, on its own, falls far too short of a
strategy to defeat Gove.

Islington
NUT reaffirms its view, expressed overwhelmingly at previous UGMs, that only
national strike action can be successful in resisting Gove’s attacks and
defending our unions.

We welcome the proposal likely to be
considered at next week’s National Executive meeting, that the union should
call a national one day strike this term, possibly on 13 March.

We recognise, however, that a one day strike
will need to be quickly escalated to a programme of hard-hitting strike action
which can cause a political crisis for the Coalition and hit private sector
employers economically as parents have to stay at home to care for their
children.

We
believe such action will not only hit the Coalition hard but will also allow us
to mobilise the support and solidarity of parents and the trade union movement
as a whole. Other workers under attack – civil servants, fire-fighters, health
workers – will have a battle to join.

Just
like the Chicago teachers last year, by rallying parents and other trade
unionists we can win.

Islington
NUT resolves to turn a strike call from the national union in to effective
action in the borough. Seize the time.

2) Performance Related Pay.

Islington
NUT recognises that Gove’s PRP proposals, together with the pay freeze, are the
most serious attack on our pay for many years.

His
aim is to reduce the overall pay bill by undermining pay progression and the
effect will

squeeze
living standards, especially of young teachers

be
divisive and undermine team work

give the
green light to the kind of head that bullies their staff

depress
performance from colleagues who feel less valued with accompanying increases in
stress

depress
student results (see PISA report*)

lead to
increased divisiveness between teachers and schools (as some heads may seek to
“poach” teachers)

*PRP
systems only have a positive impact on student results when teachers are paid
below average for their society: and would have a negative impact at the salary
levels currently paid in the UK (PISA Report)

We
believe that

Gove is
moving fast because he is running out of time.

the
government’s economic policy is failing to cut the deficit or relaunch growth

an
economic policy based on state directed investment is necessary to do both but
this is a minority position even in the labour movement.

pay is
being held back in the entire public sector and that fear of unemployment has
held back wage growth in the private sector too.

with
rapidly rising food and energy prices everyone is being squeezed.

at present
we are in a defensive position in which our task is to defend as much as we can
while strengthening the union.

That past
experience of recessions is that people put up with downward pressure on wages
so long as they can hold on to their jobs but that this can change dramatically
when economic conditions begin to improve and years of pent up frustration
fuels a wave of action.

We
therefore call on our executive to

for a
campaign to link the threat to our pay with the pay squeeze on everyone else to
make it clear to parents, other unions and the general public we are not just
in some sectional dispute.

To lobby
the Labour Party to try to get them to oppose these proposals and pledge to
repeal them

Support
and apply whatever pressure we can put on NASUWT to co-ordinate with us and
build towards national strike action.

To produce
a model policy for use in local authorities and in schools that commits them to
retain the existing pay scale (and for appraisal to be considered successful
for all colleagues not on capability).

To
sanction ballots for sustained strike action in any schools that plan to scrap
the pay scale or withhold pay progression so we can isolate as many of the
bullies as we can.

To name
and shame schools where we can’t get such action to stick and for each division
to publish good and bad practice on their web sites for when colleagues are
applying for jobs.

3) Prioritisation
of motions to NUT national conference.

·
3. Workload

·
25. Primary
curriculum

·
27. Child
poverty

·
46. The
crisis in education

·
48. Reforming
KS4

·
66. Building
a unionised teaching workforce in new circumstances

4). 16-19 Funding.

ITA
is shocked at the attack on 16-19 education contained in the governments new
funding formula. The new funding affects all schools and colleges offering post
16 education and massively reduces the number of hours per student per year
being funded. The government is cutting the maximum number of hours funded per
qualification by over 100 hours from 702 to 600 per year which will make it
very difficult for colleges to offer the kind of rounded programmes currently
being studied. This means that students in the state sector will be massively
disadvantaged compared to students from public schools when it comes to
applying for Higher Education courses and will receive far less support in
their learning during their 16-19 studies. The funding cuts will also lead to
an intensification of the work of teachers – meaning that they have less time
and energy to help students and teach well – and are also likely to result in
job cuts.

We
therefore call on the national union to launch a vigorous, high profile
campaign against these cuts which will involve

·
Contacting
NUT members and reps in secondary schools to make them aware of this cut so
that 6th forms, FE colleges and schools can campaign together

·
Carry out
an awareness raising amongst MP’s who may not know about this assault on the
education of young people

·
Producing
publicity materials for use in schools and colleges and with the parents of
prospective students

·
Approaching
other teacher unions to ask them to join with us in opposing these cuts.